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Veteran Reporter's 5 Lessons for Obama
We've been watching presidents come and go for years and have come up with five key lessons for President Obama to keep in mind as he copes with the world's toughest job.
Brace yourself: The worst is yet to come
Mr. President, you've probably already realized that your inauguration is likely to be the happiest day of your presidency. If only you could make that feeling last forever. The White House can be one of the loneliest places in the world. Just look at the physical deterioration some have suffered during their years in office.
If you do not want more gray hair, be prepared for a dye job.
Most presidents leave Washington with, at best, mixed feelings toward the place and many with whom they've worked -- especially the press. Perhaps that is why they choose never to live there again after leaving office and visit infrequently.
John F. Kennedy once called Washington a city of "Southern efficiency and Northern charm."
Harry Truman famously said that if you want a friend in Washington, "Get a dog."
Forget your privacy: You are a public servant
Sorry, Mr. President, but when you go into the White House, you had better know that you live in a fishbowl with few hiding places. You are public property. Don't go into public life if you want a private life.
And never forget you are not the boss. You work for the people. Lyndon Johnson might have been joking, but one day on the South Lawn his outsized ego got away from him. As a phalanx of helicopters assembled to transport his entourage, someone asked, "Mr. President, which helicopter is yours?"
"Son, they're all mine," Johnson replied.
Presidents are so shielded from the normal routines of life that they might be forgiven for thinking they are somehow protected from everything. The psychological impact of isolation, despite constant scrutiny, is one for the medical experts to figure out. But it is often humorous to watch them wrestle with their surreal circumstances.
Living in their protective bubble as they do, presidents can be forgiven for losing touch with how normal people live. But often their zeal for personal privacy contributes to their own isolation.
You are not perfect, Mr. President. So don't pretend that you are and hide the bad stuff.If you are still smoking, say so directly, and openly share your struggle with the public.
Protecting your privacy can come at a greater cost than simply revealing what you don't want the public to know. If it is found out -- and it probably will be -- you not only have the fallout from the exposure to deal with, but you will also be accused of deceit.
Open up: The people have a right to know
Presidents usually come into office vowing to conduct the most open administration in history. In the White House pressroom, we tend to snicker at such promises. They are not kept.
The openness or secrecy of an administration depends on the president. It is your job, Mr. President, to set the tone and lay down the rules for how your White House staff views the public's right to the truth.
There are many avenues for a president to get the message out -- through the news media, addresses to the nation and going on the stump. You will regret using those methods to avoid tough questions, distort the truth or try to spin away your problems. It might take a while, but the public will one day catch on.
Although most presidential press secretaries would like to shut the door on reporters, only one, George Stephanopoulos, literally did so. Early in Bill Clinton's administration, he had the door to his staff area closed, apparently not understanding how important this access was to us.
After much griping from the press corps, Stephanopoulos relented. He explained why in his book, "All Too Human."
"Helen Thomas led the charge," Stephanopoulos wrote. "For more than 30 years she had started her day a little before 7 a.m. by planting herself outside the press secretary's office and asking him a question as he walked through the door.
"Now she couldn't do that anymore. With a voice that sounded then like the Wicked Witch of the West's, she went on the attack. ... Helen was letting me know who was really in charge. I may have been working for the new president, but she was part of the institutional presidency. She could wait us out, and she intended to win."
Have courage: Even if it hurts
The theme of your campaign was summed up by the title of one of your books, "The Audacity of Hope." You've given us hope, Mr. President. Now show us the audacity.
In Afghanistan, Mr. President, you risk repeating Lyndon Johnson's disastrous escalation of the Vietnam War after listening too much to the generals. Again, the Pentagon wants more troops for a tricky war, vowing success in Afghanistan if you only agree. That's what the British and the Russians thought before they utterly failed to subdue their foes in Afghanistan's difficult terrain.
Have courage to resist such pleas if your instincts say otherwise, Mr. President. That is why the founders of our nation put a civil servant in charge of the military. You are the decision-maker, not the follower.
Remember, the generals work for you. Think about how Harry Truman once proved the point. He had just fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur for publicly disagreeing with his policy against expanding the Korean War into China.
Truman elaborated on the decision for reporters in his typically blunt fashion:
"I fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the president. I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son-of-a-bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail."
Give us vision: It's your legacy
A good president, wrote 19th century historian Henry Adams, "resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek."
The port you seek, Mr. President, is your vision. Those who take this lightly do so at their peril.
But even the most inspirational vision is just talk if not combined with action.
Now is the time to fill in the blanks, Mr. President. The excitement and newness of your presidency has worn off. Turn your vision into reality. Show us that you can deliver results.
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33 Comments so far
Show AllResign for lying during the campaign: It's your duty.
Well said, Kucinich2012!
Dennis Kucinich would not require any lessons. He was articulate, specific and honest on CSPAN this morning as always.
Why didn't you people so perfect ask the worse self appointed dictator,war criminal, liar at everything he said for eight years? Some people in this destroyed country by the repuke's deserved Bush. All the people that think you can do a better job, run for office next term. You might make it,Bush did.
Brilliant rebuttal of... oh you didn't rebut anything anyone actually said, empty raving.
Resign for lying when you took the oath of office.
Why, none of the others did?
It's late for anyone to retain hope that Obama might work for We the people. His terrible record, in such a short time, of selling out to the worst interests of crass delusional power - the bank sellout, war escalation, health insurance fiasco, refusal to turn off the shredder that ate the Bill of Rights, etc - leaves no hope for hope.
Does Thomas or anyone think O is going to wake up one morning with a transformed conscience?
Next up - O on climate change.
Obama will continue to do what Rahm tells him to do.
Obama will continue to do what Rahm tells him to do.
Hear! Hear!
"Next up - O on climate change."
No vision, either. He won't go to Copenhagen.
We: worse yet, he WILL go to Copenhagen (stop off there on his way to pick up the Peace Prize) and make yet another "inspiring speech" about the dangers of global warming while his administration sabotages all world efforts to deal with it.
there is ample evidence that with all the differences - largely between the USA and the REST - EVEN including the difference of opinion as to how "much" the developed nations , most responsible for the accumulated and accelerated global warming and climate disaster, and how "much" the "catching up" nations , such as china , ought to make in terms of making changes - the USA seems to be the "odd man out" - after all the discourse will be sorted out, whether now or years from now.
compared to china for example, considering that china IS also the other biggest polluter as a result of its modernization, the USA remains the one that does NOT want to make any real changes.
china is already making the important moves to lay the foundation for a future based less and less on polluting technologies, even as it continues to adaptation to modernity with the vestiges of "industrialisation".
aready , in terms of cars - china is seriously applying a mandate of hybrid or electric and hightechnology less polluting cars. the USA does not EVEN compare to that.
it is already poised to become the world's main "solar power" producer and wind power producer.
it is really just a question of time when these things will be much more firmly established . the asians know that their long-term prosperity - based on closer ties , "free trade" regionally, depends on commonality despite any rivalries, and that they have the experience of having the most clearly direct effects of global warming...as shown recently by the typhoons..that ALONE will be foremost reason for them to take seriously, on a national mandated leve to TIE their prosperity WITH accelerating any scientific, technological and economic advances TO alleviating the growing climate disaster...
by the TIME these other countries have somehow found their own ways to at least contribute to improving conditions on the climate ...
the USA - i predict - will REMAIN the FOOT DRAGGING "left behind" nation .
and one day -- will no longer be able to hide behind any kind of argument or excuses.
So far, Obama has been about as interested in an open administration as Bush was. He seems utterly indifferent to the fact that most Americans want single-payer health care and desperately want us the hell OUT of Afghanistan and Iraq. Especially those of us who know anything about these illegal wars, admittedly a slim minority. But even most of the mindless millions who know basically nothing about them think we should get out. Does Obama care? Did Cheney? If McChrystal the master assassin of Iraq says 40,000 more troops, how many will Obama deliver? 35,000, as if to say the president is making his own decisions? Or 60,000 to show he means business and isn't distracted by mere history. Also, any old health care plan will do, just so he gets some meaningless bill signed. It won't go into effect until 2013 at the soonest, Obama will be out of office and won't need to worry about it. He can say he passed health care "reform" and go on the lecture circuit, get on some corporate boards, rake in the millions. He'll be another great American success story.
"He seems utterly indifferent..."
****************
Ephraim you have summed up the Beige Bush in just four words--bravo and congratulations on such an elegant, eloquent, and succinct analysis.
Poet
Veteran Reporter's 5 Lessons for Obama
There are actually six and the sixth is the most important: take every bribe that comes your way, line your pockets and make as many contacts with the wealthy as possible so you can continue enriching yourself once you're out of office. You may only be there four years.
As someone who has watched, listened to, or read Helen Thomas for nearly 50 years, it is both heartening and sobering to read this piece. At 89 there is a good chance that she might not still be alive when the Obama presidency ends.
With her passing would go a precious repository of historical reference and understanding as this article amply demonstrates. Savor and value the erudition and perspesctive of HT while we have her--her's will be a tough act to follow.
Poet
Its easy to criticise, why don't you people get off your butts and do something. Organize. Protest. Speak out. Hand out truth pamphlets. Write letters to the newspapers. Educate your neighbors. Run for office. Tell the truth. Stand up to propagandists. And raise your children to do all these things and more. Then maybe we will finally begin to act like we deserve a democracy.
We've been doing just that for over 40 year. I'm over 60 and have watched the Democrats plunder our money and lives all for profit. Democrats only move to the right. They are far to the right of Republicans in the 60s and 70s, to the right of our old arch enemy, Richard Nixon!
The problem is that We the People are easily scammed, led by the nose. Obama is the result. An empty suit. As Noam Chomsky has said numerous times: Obama is a blank slate that anyone can write anything on, but he will defer to his corporate masters.
How could any sane person think the American Empire would give millions to a candidate (support) who they had the slightest inkling would pull the rug out from underneath them?
considered one of the more culturally conservative cultures in europe - even some politician in Norway had said of Obama's positions:
"HERE in norway - he would be considered FAR RIGHTWING".
note: norwegians just finished voting into power the Socialist party - intentionally for the purpose of expanding their already large "welfare system".
compare this with the USA....
The man's an empty suit.......
Wish that were true. He can be one nasty bully when it comes to getting progressives to vote pro-war or lying about the Iranians, you name it.
If I had to judge who was doing the most writing of this article, I'd say Craig Crawford was doing all the controlling. Helen Thomas would never write such a weak artcle like this. She knows Obama would never come close to heeding those 5 lessons.
"Brace yourself: The worst is yet to come"
Generals rarely have to brace themselves with the soldiers being the pawns so why would the president? If the generals had actually found their lives on the line, maybe then the president would have to brace himself.
"Forget your privacy: You are a public servant"
You think he's gonna care to listen to that? He made another clean getaway doing another private meeting with a pharma lobbyist and privacy has been neutered to privilege status down from rights status. The corporations fudged this election for him and he only answers to them while our votes don't count !
"Open up: The people have a right to know"
He already broke his promise on making bills viewable to the public a few days before, uh I forgot what that was but he promised some transparency but their ain't none anyway. It's privacy for the privileged now just like health care.
"Have courage: Even if it hurts"
He's already doing well on that lesson for the corporate and military elites. He doesn't care that he's going down in the polls for being a corporate fraudman.
"Give us vision: It's your legacy"
He has already done that. It's called blind vision. The game here is to take Obama's rosy goggles, put 'em on, and accept the Obama spin on peace even if it's war.
Obama is either not following the rules or he's twisting them for the wrong people.
absolutely!
I have "hope" that Obama will "change" when he reads this. He just didn't understand what it was all about before. This article has put his feet to the fire.
You're funny!
With all respect to Helen Thomas, this article is fatally flawed, insofar as it seems directed to the "President".
Admittedly, this term still enjoys popular use. And-- so far-- it's survived the "rebranding" mania Team Obama has employed to take ownership of its heinous predecessor's post-constitutional authoritarian government and its reprehensible policies and practices.
Still, while the advice in this article may apply to a "President", it's utterly irrelevant to a Unitary Executive-- a term which is itself a rebranding of "monarch".
Obama's mission, his quest, is to be the first two-term monarch of color in US history. Perhaps Rahm sees Obama as a trail-blazer for the first two-term "openly" Zionist monarch.
The latter is mere speculation, but I'm certain that if Obama had been content to be a mere "President", his behavior would conform more closely to the gentle advice dispensed in this article.
· Yr Obd't Servant
I would be just all too easy to have (and here comes the oxymoron) the/a politician to 'tell the truth and the facts' but NOT telling the truth and the facts is where the money is and as obvious to the fact that politics in this country is criminal subversion and all it takes is that 'friend in washington' to set one's self up on the program of pigs and earmards, it will take the people confronting those they elect to do what the people want.
I could vote for kucinich but he would have to drop that 'democrat' moniker.
samosamo, why would you only vote for Dennis Kucinich if he dropped the "democrat moniker"?
Dennis Kucinich has served the community of Cleveland well as congressman.
Dennis Kucinich has served the world in speaking out in specifics about how we can reduce the suffering in our country and the world.
Dennis Kucinich has voted consistently against war and corporate greed.
Dennis Kucinich has not towed the party line.
What difference does it make if he has the "democrat moniker"?
Has it been any easier for a Ralph Nader to be elected?
Has Dennis Kucinich not proved to be trust-worthy with his actions, not rhetoric?
Dennis Kucinich as President will:
End war
Regulate corporations
Provide Single-Payer Health care
End welfare to the rich
Reinstate public works programs
Provide free college education
Instate environmental regulations
Equal rights in marriage
What more do you need to know or for him to prove?
Why do people continue to make excuses as to why they cannot vote in favor of their own best interests?
Because he remains in the democrat party to which I have an aversion to anything that deals with the bought and paid for democrats and republicans and I flat out haven't seen where either one of those parties will do anything that will help the people.
...if Obama resigns, then Joe Biden will be president. Egad!
I go back and forth over seeing the funny sides to the political horrorshow.
But I can't help finding it funny that during the campaign season, the veep choice is high drama that inspires seemingly intensive scrutiny and analysis from interested parties in and out of the corporate media commentariat.
During that rutting season, when the players are pumped up with adrenaline and other hormones, each veep contender supposedly has a range of important qualifications and strengths, etc.
And, like snowflakes, supposedly no two are exactly alike. Yet, for all of the busy handicapping, it's presumed that the choices are ready to step up to the Oval Office if need be.
Yet as soon as the election is held, it's instantly obvious that the veep-elect's strength, his or her unique and special gift, is to inspire a universal "Egad!" at the prospect of the veep actually becoming president. Cheney or Biden, their ultimate purpose is to be a poster child for "Consider the Alternative!"
· Yr Obd't Servant
Obedient Servant wrote:
"Yet as soon as the election is held, it's instantly obvious that the veep-elect's strength, his or her unique and special gift, is to inspire a universal 'Egad!' at the prospect of the veep actually becoming president. Cheney or Biden, their ultimate purpose is to be a poster child for 'Consider the Alternative!'"
Astute observation. Just ask LBJ!
Meanwhile, the article reports (in the context of the McChrystal/Afghanistan debacle):
>>Truman elaborated on the decision [to fire Gen. Douglas MacArthur] for reporters in his typically blunt fashion:
"I fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the president. I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son-of-a-bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail."<<
WOW! I never saw that quote before. Too bad Obama lacks that kind of plain-spoken audacity... Hats off to Harry! OTOH, isn't it an irony that Truman sort of bowed to Churchill's coining the term, the Iron Curtain (first spoken in a speech in the American Midwest), then got us into the Korean War, while is was GENERAL EISENHOWER who as his successor got us out.
Oh God. I just realized that half to three-quarters of the U.S. population, like the generals, have no idea what I am talking about. Like, you know, how many 30-year-olds today even know who Adlai Stevenson was? Obama do! Springfield, where the hemp grows heavy in the summertime...where the women are pleasant, the men are abnormal, and the children never grow up. Why would they want to?
Meanwhile, it must be hard on the inveterate Helen Thomas, who has now outlived my mother---her contemporary---by two years, to realize that history revises itself, no intervention by "realists" needed.
I have often wondered what might have happened if Truman had not fired Gen. MacArthur, I suspect that the Korean War really was a "cusp of history." Were I a nationalist, as MacArthur was, I would have said, drop the goddam bomb on China and send them back across the Yellow River; we did it to Japan we can do it to you and screw the Soviets and let's put a line in the sand. Yeah. Millions dead. But how are we better off today for not doing that? Were we just delaying the inevitable? Is this why we gave Pakistan The Bomb? And India? How many centuries does it take for humans to come to a right decision?
When the United States had the power to direct Human Events in the right direction, it squandered it. Why? Today, we are wallowing in our own failures. Why?
Just asking! And I'm a self-described and historically literate elderly "Progressive"!
Keep it up Helen Thomas. You have the ugliest face in modern journalism, but I love it. Keep showing your age. And keep showing up. You ugly icon of Remembrance of Things Past. What does it say about us that women today are stronger than men. Probably that we live in a polluted environment.
If my comments here offend, I do not apologize.
As a former journalist I am enraged by our current condition. (We are all eating estrogen receptors!) Wake up America.
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